Bet­ter to di­vorce a woman than kill her, Mus­lim law board tells SC

It is bet­ter to di­vorce a woman than kill her, the al­lIn­dia Mus­lim per­sonal law board told the Supreme Court on Fri­day, de­fend­ing the prac­tice of triple ta­laq that faces le­gal chal­lenge for bias against women.

The AIMPLB, a non-gov­ern­men­tal in­sti­tu­tion that over­sees Mus­lim per­sonal law, also said the Mus­lim law gave hus­bands the power to di­vorce as they were emo­tion­ally more sta­ble.

“Shariah grants the right to di­vorce be­cause men have greater power of de­ci­sion mak­ing. They are more likely to con­trol emo­tions and not take a hasty de­ci­sion,” the board said in an af­fi­davit.

Triple ta­laq, un­der which a Mus­lim man can re­peat the word ta­laq thrice to di­vorce his wife, vi­o­lated women’s right to equal­ity, sev­eral women have told the Supreme Court.

But the board said in case of a discord, di­vorce was a bet­ter op­tion avail­able to a Mus­lim man than him re­sort­ing to “crim­i­nal ways of get­ting rid of her (wife) by mur­der­ing her”.

The rights be­stowed by re­li­gion couldn’t be ques­tioned in a court of law, it said. The Qu­ran didn’t fall within the ex­pres­sion of “laws” that could be chal­lenged. The Supreme Court couldn’t in­ter­fere with re­li­gious free­dom and “re­write per­sonal laws in the name of so­cial re­form”, it said.